Posts tagged ‘Kiska Metals Corp (KSK)’

Equity financing plunged 41%. Market caps plummeted 43%. Those were the dismal numbers released November 5 by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP for the top 100 TSX Venture mining juniors for the year ending June 30. Of course, the Junior Mine 2012 report surprised no one. Instead—and despite its cautiously optimistic outlook for 2013—PwC merely confirmed the word on the street and the mood in the boardrooms.

But not for all companies. The same day an announcement by Brixton Metals TSXV:BBB sent its stock from a November 5 open of $0.15 to a close of $0.20. The next day the price hit $0.26 before settling back at $0.20. Brixton’s news came from its Thorn Property, a 28,000-hectare silver-gold-polymetallic project in northwestern British Columbia.

“What we’re showing is evidence of a system that has significant scale potential from what most people previously thought was a small, narrow, high-grade system,” says chairman/CEO Gary Thompson. “I think it’s clear now that we’re dealing with about a 150-metre zone, about 100 metres of true width, which is quite substantial.”

Assays from hole THN 12-83 show:

165.3 grams per tonne silver, 1.37 g/t gold, 0.11% copper, 0.92% lead and 1.25% zinc for a gold-equivalent of 5.67 g/t or a silver-equivalent of 314.59 g/t over 150.5 metres

(including 284.15 g/t silver, 1.49 g/t gold, 0.12% copper, 1.31% lead and 1.78% zinc for a gold-equivalent of 8.41 g/t or a silver-equivalent of 466.28 g/t over 73.7 metres)

(including 725.55 g/t silver, 2.01 g/t gold, 0.13% copper, 3.33% lead and 3.68% zinc for a gold-equivalent of 18.89 g/t or a silver-equivalent of 1,047.54 g/t over 13 metres)

The intercept starts at 24 metres and ends at 174.5 metres, with true width estimated at approximately 100 metres. Grades are uncut.

Hole 12-80 showed these results:

162.94 g/t silver, 0.34 g/t gold, 1.24% copper, 0.07% lead and 0.14% zinc for a gold-equivalent of 5.89 g/t or a silver-equivalent of 326.71 g/t over 7 metres

(including 500 g/t silver, 0.69 g/t gold, 4.03% copper, 0.11% lead and 0.22% zinc for a gold-equivalent of 18.01 g/t or a silver-equivalent of 998.58 g/t over 2 metres)

This intercept runs from 104.5 metres to 111.5 metres, with true width yet to be determined. Still pending are results for six additional holes, as well as 362 soil samples that might indicate the original location of a rock that graded 265 g/t gold and 631 g/t silver.

A cross-section of recent drilling showing hole THN 12-83.

The company states that the project’s Oban zone remains open in several directions, with recent drilling expanding high-grade mineralization at depth to the south-southeast by 70 metres.

As a geologist, Thompson finds hole THN 12-83 especially remarkable. “I think the interesting point is that the mineralization is actually hosted within the Thorn porphyry stock unit, which is a little unusual because most of the mineralization that we’ve seen is hosted within the Oban breccia zone. So my gut’s telling me there’s some structural control to the system that’s probably propagating structures into the Thorn stock, allowing for the associated mineralizing fluids to drive into the stock. I think this zone is under-explored and we’re learning new things each time we work on the system.”

VP Exploration Mark Baknes stated, “These results demonstrate a broad and deep gold-copper system that is impressive in its strength and complexity. Island Mountain is emerging as a significant target at the Whistler Project.”

Brixton Metals is an Emerging Player in Alaska’s Rich Kahilt District

By Ted Niles

What is it they say about first steps? That they’re the hardest? True, no doubt, but some are easier than others. Take Brixton Metals Corporation. It may be a year old and has yet to put a drill in the ground; but it boasts the largest landholding in an area of Alaska that is being spoken of as an emerging district-Kahilt.

Located 150 kilometres northwest of Anchorage, Brixton’s Kahilt Property consists of 863 claims-252 optioned from Millrock Resources Inc-that total 557 square kilometres. More important than this, though, is the company Brixton keeps. Millrock’s neighbouring Estelle Project is under option from Teck Resources Limited, which has a $3.4-million exploration program on tap this year. And Kahilt is immediately adjacent to Kiska Metals Corporation’s Whistler Project, which boasts indicated resources of 1.28 million ounces gold, 5.03 million ounces silver and 302 million pounds copper; inferred resources of 1.85 million ounces gold, 8.21 million ounces silver, and 467 million pounds copper.

“So there’s Teck and Millrock,” says Brixton President/CEO Gary Thompson, “and we anticipate Kiska probably spending in the neighbourhood of $20 million there this year. We have a proposed $10-million budget. So you’re talking about a $30 million to $35 million budget for this area. We’re excited about Kahilt because we see the potential for something big. We’re in the same geological terrain as the Pebble Deposit-which is being developed by Northern Dynasty and Anglo American-and that’s one of the largest copper-gold-moly-silver deposits on the planet.”

Summer 2011 work will focus on Monte Cristo and St Eugene-the two Kahilt targets under option from Millrock. Thompson explains, “It’s relatively unexplored-Millrock spent only about $330,000 on the property-but it’s come up with two fairly large-scale targets. St Eugene appears to be a copper-gold-moly porphyry system. Monte Cristo appears to be an intrusion-related gold system. Our Alaska drill program will be somewhere in the area of 10,000 to 16,000 metres, and about 20,000 soil samples will be collected.” Rock samples from St Eugene show grades as high as 1% copper and 2.1 grams per tonne gold. Monte Cristo samples indicate up to 4.2 g/t gold.

In 2011, Brixton will also drill 5,000 metres on its Thorn Property in northern BC. The company has an option agreement with Kiska to earn up to a 51% interest in the project. Thorn exploration dates back to 1959. Thompson remarks, “It’s had a fair amount of work-about $5 million. Our sense is that the previous operators just didn’t have the right model, didn’t drill deep enough, which is a classic error. So we’re taking a fresh look at it. We’ve done some internal, back-of-the-envelope estimates on the drilling that’s been done to date on the Oban zone, and we came up with a non-compliant 43-101 resource of about 15 million ounces silver equivalent.”

It’s early days yet, but Thompson suggests that if this year’s drilling targets are met, “And in 2012 let’s assume that we’ll double those or more on our budgets,” Brixton can then provide preliminary resource calculations for Kahilt and Thorn. He adds that Brixton, which is 5% owned by Zimtu Capital, is in “finance mode” now. As of March 21, the company had a market cap of $5.17 million and traded at $0.23.

We’re excited about Kahilt because we see the potential for something big. – Gary Thompson

Thompson is unambiguous about the long term. “I don’t see us trying to go from exploration to production,” he declares. “If the resource is there, we want to drill that up and take it as far as we can. To the feasibility stage perhaps. And perhaps somewhere along the way we bring in a major partner. Or, if it’s big and juicy enough, somebody takes a run at Brixton. At the end of the day we’re trying to create value for our shareholders.”

So, apart from the promising property, what does Thompson think will inspire investor confidence in so junior a junior mining company? “Our team. [Director] George Salamis has a number of deals under his belt. Toby Hughes is our VP Exploration and has 30 years of experience. I’ve been involved in exploration since the mid 1980s; I have a gold-silver discovery to my credit. You want to look at the team. Who’s involved, can they deliver? That’s what should give investors confidence.”